Cy-Fair school board sets attendance zone for Smith Middle School

KIM JACKSON, CHRONICLE CORRESPONDENT

Published 6:30 am, Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Despite the efforts of a group of residents who submitted an alternate plan, Cy-Fair school district board members approved an attendance boundary proposal that will shift several subdivisions south of U.S. 290 to the new Smith Middle School off Fry Road and Cypress-North Houston when it opens in August.

Members of that group had argued that four subdivisions that would be rezoned – Remington Grove, Paddock, Westgate and Yaupon Ranch – had been shifted too many times in the district’s rezoning processes in recent years. They said it was time to keep the students that had been subject to those changes at one school during their intermediate years.

Their alternate plan suggested keeping those subdivisions at Kahla and rezoning a section of the Fairfield subdivision to Smith in order to bring the student population up to the numbers the district would like to see on opening day.

Another version of the group’s plan showed the district re-zoning all of the Fairfield community to Smith, which would eliminate the need to shift most, if not all, of the subdivisions proposed to be re-zoned by the district’s boundary team. Those included Canyon Lakes West, Lone Oak, Towne Lake, Windhaven, Remington Grove, Paddock, Westgate, Yaupon Ranch, Black Horse Ranch, Bridgeland, Cypress Creek Lakes, Cypress Creek Ranch, and Verdi at Cypress Creek Ranch Apartments.

Before taking a vote on the Smith attendance zone proposal, John Fourqurean, Cy-Fair ISD’s senior director of planning, research and evaluation and a member of the district’s boundary team, told school board members that the option proposed by the district team would provide relief for Thornton, Kahla and Hopper middle schools, which are attended primarily by students in those subdivisions south of U.S. 290.

The option did not provide relief for Spillane, the school attended by Fairfield-based students, but that situation would be alleviated in two years when a new middle school opened in the Fairfield community, Fourqurean said. It also eliminated the need to move Fairfield students in 2009 and then again in 2011.

Board member Don Ryan asked if the team had responded to the residents’ group that submitted the alternate plan, and what was the team’s evaluation of that plan.

Fourqurean said he met with members of the group to talk about the alternative. He said his team ultimately recommended the original proposal.

He said residents suggesting the alternate proposal, and many who submitted comments to the district during the community input period, were primarily form Bridgeland, Cypress Creek Lakes, Cypress Creek Ranch and Blackhorse Ranch. Those residents were not opposed to their neighborhoods being rezoned to Smith, but they said they were looking out for their neighbors in the four communities that had been moved so many times over the years.

Fairfield residents spoke out against the alternate plan at the district’s Dec. 15 board meeting and in e-mails to the district.

Fourqurean said the district did not receive comments against the zoning proposal from residents who lived in Remington Grove, Paddock, Westgate and Yaupon Ranch.

“We received e-mails from them saying they approved of the plan,” he said.

Fourqurean said that those neighborhoods had been rezoned too many times at the elementary level, but had never been rezoned at the middle school level. Students from those subdivisions had attended Kahla since it opened six years ago. The move to Smith will be the first middle school attendance zone change.

“And it is safe to say they will not be rezoned when the new middle school opens (in Fairfield) in two years,” Fourqurean said.

Several other subdivisions will be rezoned to an existing middle school under the attendance zone change.

Eagle Ranch West, Lakeville, and Settlers Village will be rezoned from Thornton to Hopper; the portion of Bear Creek Meadows north of Billney’s Park Drive, including Billney’s Park Drive, will be rezoned from Hopper to Kahla; and Barker Lakes and Riata West will be rezoned from Hopper to Spillane.

The board unanimously approved the middle school attendance zone changes and one recommended by the boundary team for Swenke Elementary School in Fairfield.

Swenke Elementary, located on a 14-acre site located at Fairfield Place Drive and Schiel Road, will primarily relieve two other elementary schools in Fairfield – Ault Elementary in the center of the community, and Keith Elementary, which is located to the north of that.

The Swenke attendance zone option shows the school opening with 631 pupils on day one.

Subdivisions currently zoned to Ault Elementary that will move to Swenke include Fairfield Village South, which includes sections of Autumn Park, Barker’s Ridge, Bluebonnet Glen, Blue Meadow and Summer Crossing.